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STATEMENT OF HON. MOORFIELD STOREY, 

OF BOSTON, MASS., 

BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS, 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



- c ^ 



Q. - 

Committee on Insular Affairs, 

House of Representatives, 

Friday, April 6, 1906. 
The Committee on Insular Affairs met at 11 o'clock a. m., Hon. 
Henry Allen Cooper in the chair. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MOORFIELD STOREY, OF BOSTON, MASS. 

Mr. Storey. It would have been easy, under certain circumstances, 
to bring here a great manj gentlemen to make short speeches in 
favor of this resolution, but it would have meant calling a great many 
busy men from different parts of the country at a great deal of 
inconvenience and expense to them, and so Mr. McCall has thought 
it better to place that responsibility upon one man, and the responsi- 
bility has fallen upon me. I could wish that it had fallen upon some- 
body better qualified, but I shall endeavor to do the best that I can. 

I fancy that there are now very few citizens of America who do 
not recognize that the Philippine Islands present to us a most 
embarrassing problem. Some seven or eight millions of poor, dis- 
contented, unhappy people are a serious problem for any government 
to deal with, especially where the government is as remote from the 
scene of action as is the United States from the Philippine Islands. 

I do not propose to discuss who is responsible for the existing con- 
ditions. That is a matter of history, and it involves a good many 
disagreeable and partisan arguments. The present is enough, and it 
is clear that the proper solution of the questions that now present 
themselves is difficult enough to require all the time and all the 
thought that we can spare for the Philippine Islands. 

As Mr. McCall has pointed out, this resolution is aimed at one 
reason for retaining our control of the islands. When the islands 
were taken the argument was that it was necessary to do so in order 
to prevent them from being taken by some other power. That argu- 
ment did not impress all of us, but it impressed a great many people 
of this country very much. And we see it constantly brought for- 
ward now as a reason for retaining the islands. We can not afford 
to let them go because some other power would take them. 

This resolution aims to remove that obstacle from our path, and the 
feeling which prompts it is that we should be at liberty to deal with 
the Philippine Islands as we think proper. The question of their 
government; the question whether they should receive their inde- 
pendence or not is a question between us and the Filipinos, and it is 
not a question which legitimately interests any foreign power. In 
deciding that question we should be able to deal with it as we think 
best. If we conclude to give the Filipinos independence, we should 
be in a position to do so when we think proper, but not to have our 
148 ^.^ : 

J- .iu i i 1907 

D. OFD, 



HEAKING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAE AFFAIES. 149 

judgment coerced by the fact that some foreign nation is liable to 
interfere if we decide in a certain way. This, therefore, is a resolu- 
tion which is intended to free the hands of the United States and 
leaves in its entire control the situation. 

That it is feasible to obtain such an agreement is, I think, hardly 
doubtful. In the first place, if we ask the powers of the world to 
make this agreement Avith us, we are not asking them to give us any- 
thing. The Philippine Islands in their eyes now belong to us. They 
are not subjects for foreign aggression. To interfere with them 
means war with us, and that is what no foreign power is at present 
seeking. Therefore when we ask them to agree, if we decide that it 
is proper to give the Filipinos their independence, they will keep 
their hands off. We are asking them to give nothing. 

The request, if made now, is made at a peculiarly favorable time. 
There never was in the history of the world a time when the friend- 
ship of the United States was so much desired by everybody as it is 
at this moment. There are many of us who come down from a 
former generation who remember the time during the civil war when 
the relations between this country and England, this country and 
France, this country and Germany, were strained ; when we felt that 
we were constantly living under the shadow of their interference in 
our affairs; when the greatest service that could be rendered was to 
persuade them to keep their hands off; and the feeling in this 
country against those nations was extremely bitter. But to-day 
Japan certainly wishes to cooperate with us, and she recognizes the 
friendship that we have shown her in the recent war with Russia. 
Russia would be anxious to be our friend if possible, and a reformed 
Russia will find us warmly her friend. Germany has shown her de- 
sire to be friendly with us by her recent action about the tariff. 
France and England are certainly each anxious to preserve their 
present relations with us ; and if this country were to ask them simply 
to make this agreement, I am perfectly certain that there would be 
no objection. If we said that we wanted this thing we should get it. 

Moreover, what we are dealing with, that which we are afraid of, 
is not so much the anxiety on the part of any foreign nation to take 
the Philippine Islands because it wants the islands as it is the fear 
that one nation may take them in order to prevent another nation 
from taking them. England once owned and controlled these islands, 
but she let them go voluntarily. Spain owned and controlled them, 
and, I fancy, was very glad to get rid of them. Certainly the figures 
show that her prosperity since we have had her colonies is much 
greater than when she had them. Our own experience with them 
has not been such as to make other nations regard them as a peculiarly 
tempting morsel. Probably if England should be assured that Ger- 
many would not get them, and Germany that France would not get 
them, and France that no other foreign power would get them they 
would be glad to agree that those islands should become independent. 
They would be protected by an international agreement against their 
being absorbed by any rival. 

This result is in accordance with perfectly established diplomatic 
precedents. The independence of Holland clear back to the treaty 
of Utrecht has been protected by international agreement. The inde- 
pendence of Belgium was guaranteed in 1839, the independence of 



150 HEARING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 

Switzerland in 1813, and I could give jon a long list of similar 
agreements whereby certain small powers have been made independ- 
ent, and by the consent of their stronger neighbors have been pro- 
tected against aggression. If, therefore, we, the great Republic of 
the West, feel at any time in the future that the time has come when 
it is worth while to let the small republic start in the East, we wish 
\o feel that we shall be able to do so. And the agreement that this 
resolution suggests is simply an agreement that if we want to let our 
child try to walk alone these other powers will not step in and knock 
it ,.)own. To me the thing seems to be a matter of common sense. It 
assures us freedom in dealing with the most difficult problem that we 
noT^ have before us. It gives us a free hand, and it does not force our 
hanc/ in any way. It removes one difficulty in our path, and that 
certa.':nly is something which we all ought to be glad to accomplish. 
And I am unable to see that there should be any objection whatever, 
but objections are stated. 

Mr. Crumpacker. The agreement by the powers for the neutrali- 
zation )i the smaller countries of the world are simply to secure their 
indepciidence against foreign aggression. Are there extant now any 
agreements to protect them against domestic incapacity and disorder? 

Mr. ^^TOREY. I fancy not, sir. 

Mr. vDrumpacker. I am in sympathy, in a broad way, with this 
proposition. But, in view of the fact that in the Philippine Archi- 
pelago there is no common language, no literature, no common tradi- 
tions, und practically no national spirit, do you believe that those 
people could maintain any kind of respectable, independent govern- 
ment ? Are you sufficiently well acquainted with the conditions there 
to be Jwble to give an opinion upon that question ? 

Mr. Storey. Well, sir, if those assertions of yours are all correct — 
which I am not quite prepared to admit — I should none the less say 
that, in my judgment, they are much more competent to govern them- 
selves than any other nation is to govern them, and I shall endeavor 
to say something in support of that proposition before I get through. 

Mr. Crumpacker. I would be glad to hear you upon that. 

Mr. Storey. They have no common language, but it seems to me 
that they are better able to understand each other than they are to 
understand us. English has never been a language spoken by any of 
the people of the island, and while their dialects vary very much, the 
same is true of the English dialects, for the people of Cornwall and 
the Scotchmen do not always understand each other, yet they have 
means of communication by which they understand each other very 
much better than they understand Frenchmen. 

So far as national spirit is concerned, it seems to me the Filipinos 
have a very strong national spirit. The testimony of a gentleman 
who is a member of this committee, the testimony of many gentlemen 
who went to the Philippine Islands, the universal testimony of these 
gentlemen is that the Filipinos all desire independence. That is the 
foundation of national spirit, and the capacity for disorder is common 
to human nature. I want to say a few words about that when I come 
to it a little further on in my argument. 

But let us take that very proposition. It is said that Holland and 
Belgium and Switzerland are well-organized countries that can safely 
be intrusted with their independence, and the Philippines can not. 
This resolution frees our hands. It leaves us free to settle the ques- 



HEARING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AEFAIRS. 151 

tion when and as we will, but to settle it as we think right, and not to 
hold on to the Philippines when we think it right to let them go, for 
fear that England or Germany or France or some other country may 
take them. We shall be taking advantage of a peculiar situation, 
which will leave us to deal with the islands without fear of foreign 
interference. That is all that this resolution accomplishes. But it 
is said that this thing contemplates their future independence; that 
the passage of this resolution would mean to them, and would mean 
to the world, that ultimately we propose to make them independent. 
Is not that to-day the position of almost everybody in this country? 

A good many years ago, at the beginning of the business, there 
were people who fancied that this was going to be an extremely profit- 
able venture ; that the United States had much to gain by taking the 
Philippine Islands. I think that that party has been steadily losing 
membership ever since. The words, " The Philippines for the Fili- 
pinos " mean, ultimately, their independence. 

The Chairman. I want to call your attention to a passage in the 
report of the Philippine Commission (the Schurman Commission), 
with which probably j^ou are familiar, and to ask your opinion as to 
whether the statement is applicable to present conditions. On page 
175 of their report that Commission say : 

Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn, the Commission believe that 
the goyernment of the Philippines would speedily lapse into anarchy. 

Then a littlQ later they say : 

Only through American occupation, therefore, is the idea of a free, self-gov- 
erning, and united Philippine commonwealth at all conceivable. 

And then, speaking of educating the Filipinos, they say : 

Nevertheless, they recognize the indubitable fact that the Filipinos can not 
stand alone. 

Now, if they are in such a condition that our withdrawal would 
result in anarchy, is it now possible for us to state with any degree of 
certainty a day for such withdrawal ? 

Mr. Stoeey. This resolution does not call for that. 

The Chairman. Is not that a practical question? 

Mr. Storey. I am not prepared to deal with that question. May I 
ask what is the report from which you have just quoted? 

The Chairman. It is the report of the Schurman Commission. 
They went over there at the direction of President McKinley. It 
must have been in 1900. 

Mr. McCall. Isn't the report dated ? 

The Chairman. I read from an extract of the report. The Com- 
mission was appointed in 1898. The report is at least six years old. 

Mr. Storey. That report was signed by President Schurman ? 

The Chairman. It was signed by President Schurman, Admiral 
Dewey, Charles Denby, and Dean C. Worcester. 

Mr. Storey. Colonel Denby was the gentleman who said that we 
should try the Philippine Islands, and if we found that they would 
not pay, we should let them go. President Schurman, after some ex- 
perience in the islands and his experience since, has changed his mind, 
and he said not long ago that "the worst government of the Philip- 
pines by themselves would be better than the best government of the 
Filipinos by the United States." That is a change of mind. 



152 HEAEING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 

Admiral Dewey began by saying that the Filipinos were much better 
fitted for self-government than were the Cubans, and I think that his 
mind has been more or less in suspense. General Otis, I think, is the 
man who is responsible more than anybody else for the war. I do 
not think that as a statesman his judgment should control ours. At 
any rate, that was made at the beginning of the period upon which 
we are now looking back. It was made, apparently, on the theory 
that our government there was going to he free from disorder; that 
we were going to secure a peaceful, prosperous community. No one 
can look back upon the six years that have passed without saying that 
this expectation has been very far from realized. 

Now, take up this question of the danger that the Filipinos will 
fight among themselves and show me any free nation, from the begin- 
ning of history until now, that has not won its freedom through 
fighting. Take the great Anglo-Saxon race. Take England, and 
go back and see how many wars she has had with Ireland ; how many 
wars with Scotland ; how many wars of the Eoses ; how many revo- 
lutions like the revolution which cost Charles I his head, and the revo- 
lution of 1688. How many fights have occurred before they acquired 
the liberty they now have ? 

Cross the channel to France and remember the wars there — the re- 
ligious wars, the wars of the Froude. Remember the disputes cul- 
minating in the French revolution ; and it was through that revolu- 
tion that France obtained the liberty that she now has. And during 
the next one hundred years, how many more revolutions ? The revo- 
lution of 1830, the revolution of 1848, the coup d'etat of 1851, down to 
the time of the Commune, it has been a long series of internal dis- 
orders, internal contest, internal bloodshed; and the result to-day is 
that France has the strongest government that she has ever had. 

And how is it in Germany? Look at the numerous battles that 
they have had there — their revolutions. Look at Russia to-day, and 
ask yourselves whether those people are not through bloodshed win- 
ning their way to freedom. 

Go down to Mexico. In 1848 we left Mexico absolutely shattered. 
We destroyed her government; we destroyed the coherence of the 
people; we left it a prey to factional and internal disorder and al3S0- 
lutely impoverished. That was in 1848— something like fifty-eight 
years ago — and where is Mexico now ? She is one of the most pros- 
perous and well-ordered of the nations which lie south of us on this 
continent. 

It was the same way in South America. A.nd I can not help call- 
ing your attention to the words of Henry Clay, when he spoke of the 
South American Republics, for which everybody was prophesymg 
disorder, in 1822 : 

But it is sometimes said that they are too ignorant to admit of the existence 
of free government. * * * i (jeny the alleged fact of their ignorance. I 
deny the inference from the fact, if it were a fact, that they want capacity for 
free government. * * * I contend that it is to arraign the dispositions of 
the Almighty to suppose that he has created beings incapable of governing them- 
selves and to be trampled on by Kings. Self-government is the natural gov- 
ernment of man, and for proof I refer to the aborigines of our own land. 

And President Lincoln put the same argument more at length when 
he said : 

These arguments that are made that the inferior race are to be treated with 
as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying : that as much is to be done 



HEAKIFG BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAK AFFAIKS. 153 

for them as their condition will allow — what are these arguments? They are 
the arguments that kings have made for the enslaving of the people in all 
ages of the world. You will find that the arguments of kingcraft were always 
of this class. They always bestrode the necks of the people; not that they 
wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. * * ♦ 
Turn it every way you will, whether it come from the mouth of a king as an 
excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of 
one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same 
old serpent. 

Now, against such statesmen as General Otis, who is a military 
m^an, and Admiral Dewey, who is a naval officer, I can not help think- 
ing that we can place the arguments of Lincoln and Clay, and feel 
that they as statesmen are better and safer guides for the people of 
this country than are the gentlemen who have been referred to. 

But there is another thing to be said on this subject. Take these 
Moro Islanders. They have been governing themselves for a great 
many years. They are said to be the most savage part of the Philip- 
pine Islands. They had so much of a government that we made a 
treaty with them which lasted for some years. They went on, so far 
as appears, without internecine warfare during the existence of that 
treaty. Now, if they are incapable of self-government, how is it 
that this has not happened ? How is it that for three years there was 
peace on these islands and that the first indication of war, bloodshed, 
and slaughter came when troops of the United States went there ? 

The Chairman. There are some practical features of it that need 
•discussion. 

Mr. Storey. I was simply addressing myself to your question 
whether the Filipinos are fit to govern themselves. 

The Chairman. I appreciate the force of your argument. 

Mr. Storey. Then you must remember when you say they have no 
literature that the University of Manila is older than the University 
of Harvard. You must remember, also, that they have a large num- 
ber of men who were educated at foreign universities. 

The Chairman. Let me say right there, in connection with what 
you said about the treaty with the Moros, that instead of being what 
we call a " treaty " it was simply an agreement between the military 
commander and the insurgents, and an agreement with relation to 
the regulation of the practice of human slavery. President McKin- 
ley refused to ratify that particular clause in this military agreement, 
but peace, notwithstanding, continued in this province — and this is 
a reply to your question, I think — until such time as our officers un- 
dertook to prevent human slavery there, when the trouble began. 

Mr. Ruce:er. That treaty, I think, had its inception in the thought 
that the United States Government wanted the aid of the Moros in 
preserving order there. I think that is true, is it not? 

The Chairman. That possibly had something to do with it. 

Mr. Storey. I think this must be said, that we wanted the Moros 
to keep their hands olf while we were fighting the people in Luzon. 

The Chairman. I think it is agreed, generally speaking, that the 
reason for the outbreaks among the Moros was, in large measure, if 
not entirely, due to our interference with the system of slavery. 

Mr. Storey. I think it largely comes from the fact that we went in 
there and said, " Now, we are your masters, and you must submit." 
It was because we undertook to assert our authority over the island 
that the trouble broke out. Our purpose may have been entirely 



154 HEABING BEFOEE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAE AFFAIKS. 

benevolent, but there are certain incidents in connection with the 
enforcement of that policy that I am sure we all regret. 

As to whether they are fit for self-government at this moment or 
not, we say to the world, and we say to them, " We are endeavoring to 
educate and elevate you; we are undertaking to fit you for self- 
government," or, as the President put it, " after the manner of the 
really free peoples." We are saying to them, " Two generations 
hence — three generations hence — at some time in the indefinite 
future — we expect to let you go." 

I do not think that anybody of any importance in the United 
States now ventures to say to the people of this country that the object 
of our policy is to keep this people forever subjects, arbitrarily, with- 
out hope of freedom, or without hope of becoming citizens of the 
United States. That polic3^ is, I think, no longer advocated. Every 
advocate of our policy now puts it on the ground that some time, if 
they want to, they shall be free. 

Therefore, if you pass this resolution, you say no more to the people 
of the Philippine Islands than you are now saying to them through 
various official channels, and that is that some time they shall be free. 

But even if it means more. If it means, " We propose to make you 
free soon," must we shrink from that proposition? Is that a thing 
which strikes an American citizen as something abhorrent ; something 
wrong ; something not to be tolerated ? 

I hold in my hand here a petition which was presented to the mem- 
bers of both political parties by some 7,000 persons. After reciting 
the conditions somewhat at length, they say : 

We do ask in the name of the fundamental principles upon which the Ameri- 
can Republic was built, and in the name of justice to a foreign people now 
our subjects, that the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands be granted their 
national independence as soon as, with the maintenance and aid, and under the 
protection of this Government, they can install a free government of their own. 

Now, the men who seek this are the educational, the religious, and 
the moral leaders of this country. There are an indefinite number 
of bishops, and there are almost all the presidents of our colleges. 

Mr. McCall. Is President Schurman in the list, do you know ? 

Mr. Storey. Mr. Schurman is in the list; yes. Mr. Schurman is 
one of the most active men on the committee. Such men as Wayne 
MacVeagh signed the petition. [Examining the petition.] Yes; 
President Schurman is one of the men who signed it, and it is also 
signed by Grover Cleveland, by the leading lawyers of New York, 
by Archbishop Farley, by Cardinal Gibbons, and others. You can 
hardly name in this country men whose opinions on almost every 
subject carry greater weight with their fellow-countrymen than the 
gentlemen who signed that petition. They are not men in politics — 
though, perhaps, some of them are. They are the men who represent 
the desire of the American people; and they undoubtedly express 
the feeling that is deep in the hearts of a large majority of the people 
of the United States. 

Mr. Gilbert. Would the passage of this resolution have any effect 
upon the difficulty of preserving order in the Philippines while our 
occupation continues? 

Mr. Storey. Not a bit. The disorder comes from the fact that 
those people are unhappy and discontented. When we are dealing 



HEAEING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 155 

with children, and tell them that they can never have what they 
want 

Mr. Gilbert. Would they have the ambition of wanting that which 
they will have ultimatel}' ? 

Mr. Storey. They have the aspiration of any human being, child 
or man, for freedom. You can not check it. You can not rub it 
out. But you can give it to them. They say, " \^^lat is the use of 
being patient? What is the use of trying to get on pleasantly with 
the United States if they give us no hope? " I believe that if assur- 
ance is given to these people that the}^ are to have independence, it 
would do more to make the people happy than any other single step 
that could be taken by the United States. And that is the judgment 
of the men who signed this petition. 

Mr. Gilbert. '\Vhat do you say of the policy of forcing them to 
study the English language in the schools? 

Mr. Storey. I have ahvays felt that that was a very unwise step. 
As Mr. Dooley once put it : 

" We'll larn ye our language because 'tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn 
oursilves yours." 

Mr. Gilbert. Would it be forcing a foreign tongue upon them 
without their consent ? 

Mr. Storey. You could easily understand how we should feel in 
this country if the French should come here and make us learn 
French. Not long ago I was in Quebec, which has very nearly be- 
come a French province. I saw a statue of Queen Victoria standing 
back in a corner, broken, and statues of Champlain and Frontenac 
were in their places on the front of the Parliament House. I found 
that the papers printed for the two Houses were printed in English 
and French. Some of the members spoke French and some English. 
If an attempt were made to force those people to speak English they 
would be sure to rebel. It is a matter in which the people are vitally 
interested. The trouble between Austria and Hungary, which has 
nearly broken up the Austrian Empire, was in large part caused by 
the attempt to make Hungarian regiments obey commands given in 
German. 

And, after all, what is language but a tool? The point is to get 
the idea. One man gets his ideas by the use of French, another by 
the use of English, and another by the use of Spanish. If you find 
people thoroughly equipped with a tool, why not let them use that 
for what they have got to learn, without forcing them to use a new 
tool? 

Mr. Parsons. AVhat language should they be taught? 

Mr. Storey. I think the Visayan or the Tagalog language. The 
Tagalog comes nearer being a common language than any other does. 

Mr. Parsons. But, as a matter of fact, we were told when we were 
out there that the men of one province could not understand the 
men of another province. For instance, the officers of the con- 
stabulary 

Mr. RucKER. I understand that the same thing is true in the 
United States. I understand that the people in Arizona can not un- 
derstand those in Xew Mexico, and yet we think that these Terri- 
tories ought to be joined together. 

888a— 06 2 



156 HEAEING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAE AFFAIRS. 

Mr. Storey. There are more tribes in the United States than in 
the Visayan Islands, if you take the Indian tribes that were scat- 
tered through the territory which we call ours. 

Mr. Parsons. Do 3^ou understand that there is much objection in 
the Philippine Islands to the teaching of English in the schools ? 

Mr. Storey. I suppose that the Filipinos are glad to learn any- 
thing, but I think that there is objection to being forced to learn 
English. 

Mr. Parsons. But do they object to being taught it? 

Mr. Storey. I think they do. - I think that the feeling of the peo- 
ple is against it. I do not think that the children who go to school 
object. I do not think that we should expect any opposition from 
the children. As matters now stand, English is the tool. The man 
Avho can speak English gets on better with his neighbors; he gets on 
more easily with his rulers. It helps him to get employment. But 
I fancy that if we should step out, the study of English would not be 
persevered in. 

Now, as I was saying, suppose we were to give the Filipinos inde- 
pendence now. ^'VTiy not? Why are we staying in the Philippines? 
Why not dispassionately, as American citizens, look the facts in the 
face? T\n[i3^ are we there? Is it helping us? Take merely the 
pecuniary balance sheet, and put on one side what it costs us as a 
nation, the hundreds of millions of dollars that we have spent there 
and are going to spend there in fortifications, in keeping soldiers 
there, and all the expenses of imperial government there, and then 
on the other side of the page put the few dollars that some two or 
three citizens may have made. It is a drop against a hogshead. 

Mr. EucKER. What do you think about the patriotic duty that we 
owe forever to maintain those people over there because they fell to 
us as the result of war ? 

Mr. Storey. I think that our patriotic duty is a humane duty. 
I think that we owe the same duty to the Philippine Islands that 
we did to Cuba. I am not able to discover any special difference 
between the two cases. The question whether the Cubans were 
fit for self-government was raised before we vacated the island. I 
could cover this table with predictions from statesmen of every sort 
that if we let those people try self-government it would be sure to 
fail. We were told from every side that the Cubans were incapable 
of self-government. 

Mr. RucKER. I do not think that there has been any disorder there 
since we gave the Cubans control of the island. 

Mr. Storey. None. The general idea seems to be that the Cubans 
as business men are more prosperous than the Porto Ricans. In one 
case we have been governing the people, and in the other they have 
been governing themselves. Now, there are certain things which are 
essential to government. 

Mr. Parsons. Is not the lack of prosperity in Porto Rico due to 
other causes than that? Is it not due to the destruction of their 
coffee trees by the forces of nature, and not to matters of government ? 

Mr. Storey. If I simply listened to Porto Ricans, I should say 
" No." If I listened to the their American governors, I should say 
" Yes." There is always that fundamental difference between the 
men who are in power and who are undertaking to satisfy their 
compatriots that they are doing wisely and well, and those people 



HEAKING BEFOEE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAK AFFAIKS. 157 

who are on the other side of the fence, and who are not quite so satis- 
fied with the government. 

The Chaikman. I would like to ask you one question. You said a 
moment ago that the expense in the Philippines was enormous, and 
that there is no profit to us in the retention of the archipelago, etc. 
In that connection, is there anything instructive, by way of argu- 
ment, to be found if we refer to England's experience with Hong- 
kong? We are informed by history that for twenty years after 
England took that island there was hardly a year that bills were not 
introduced in the English Parliament for the withdrawal of Eng- 
lish power from that island, and the giving of it up, because of the 
expense, and because, as was alleged, that there was nothing by way of 
profit to the English Government. To-day there is nothing that 
could induce the English Government to withdraw from Hongkong. 
On the contrary, instead of its proving a drain on England's re- 
sources, the retention of that island has been of enormous profit for 
England. 

Mr. Storey. I have no doubt whatever that England finds Hong- 
kong profitable. I have no doubt that up to now England has 
found India profitable. But, as I understand it, we are not justify- 
ing our retention of the Philippine Islands on the ground that we 
are going to get money out of them. Therefore, England's success 
in Hongkong and India would not justify us in retaining the Philip- 
pines just because we could make money out of them. 

The Chairman. I made the suggestion merely in reply to what you 
said. 

Mr. Storey. Exactly. I appreciate what you say. I say that the 
Philippines have been a source of expense to us, and no profit. It is 
one thing to take a city like Hongkong, and quite a different thing 
to take an archipelago, containing 8,000,000 of dissatisfied people, 
and expecting to make profit out of them. I fancy that human ex- 
perience shows that a storekeeper who tries to ingratiate himself 
with his customers, who is pleasant to them and tries to induce them 
to come in and buy, is more apt to succeed than the one who tries 
to force his customers in with a stick. We have killed a great many 
of our possible customers in the Philippines, and that certainly has 
hurt our trade with the Philippine people. 

I am tempted, since you have put it to me, to deal with India here. 
Our people have contended for a great many years that if England 
has succeeded in India we can succeed in the Philippine Islands. 
There are a few essential differences. But in the first place let me 
take up the question of success. If you ask the English if they have 
succeeded in India, they say, " Yes ; ours has been a marvelous suc- 
cess." If you ask the Indian people, 3^ou get a very different idea. 
England has been steadily draining from India for a century or 
more that which has made England rich. And just as in proportion 
it has made England rich it has made India poor. I have here two 
maps [indicating]. That one illustrates the f asinine area during the 
first year of the nineteenth century. That [indicating] illustrates 
the famine area in the last famine a few years ago. India is being 
slowly starved to death for the profit of England. There have been 
more deaths from famine in India within twenty-five years than 
there have been deaths bv war the world over in one hundred and 



158 HEAEING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAE AFFAIRS. 

seven years, including the bloodshed of all the Napoleonic wars and 
our own civil war. That large black circle [indicating] represents 
the deaths by famine in India in the last twenty-five years. That 
little square [indicating] represents the deaths by war in one hundred 
and seven years. 

Mr. Gilbert. What connection is there between the famine in India 
and England's occupation ? 

Mr. Storey. The fact is that England found comparatively fcAV 
people who were starving, and every year that she-has been in India 
the area of starvation has been increasing. She has been, and is, 
draining India of her wealth, and in 1900 the annual income of the 
Indian people was £1 per head on an average. Mr. Digby tells us 
that the deaths by war in the whole world during one hundred and 
seven years, from 1793 to 1900, have been about 5.000,000, while the 
deaths from famine in India alone during ten years, from 1891 to 
1900, have been 19,000,000. This horror is progressive, and con- 
stantly increases. 

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century there were in 
India five famines, costing perhaps 1,000,000 lives; in the second 
quarter there were two, causing half as great a mortality : in the third 
quarter there were six, causing 5,000,000 deaths; and in the last quar- 
ter there were eighteen, and it is estimated that 26,000,000 people died 
of starvation. " In 1880," said Sir William Hunter, '' there remain 
4-0,000,000 people who go through life on insufficient food." In 1901 
an Indian publicist wrote : " For nearly fifteen years there has been 
a continuous famine in India, owing to high prices." The average 
duration of life in England is about forty years; in India it is 
twenty-three. It is not lack of food, but of money to buy it. There 
has always been food enough in India. England spent in tr^dng 
to subjugate the Boers, in one year, a great deal more money than 
enough to have fed every mouth in India during the same period of 
time, as we are told. 

The Chairman. In that connection, is it your idea that the monop- 
oly of English corporations is responsible for that condition ? 

Mr. Storey. Here is the condition: The Indian administrator is 
prone to claim that the Indians are lightly taxed. So they are, if 
the rate per head is taken; but the reverse is true if the proportion 
of tax to property is considered. Applying this test, it would seem 
that the Indian taxpayer pays a percentage four times as great as 
the Scotch and three times as great as the English subject of the 
Crown, yet a few years ago it was stated in Parliament that the 
income tax in India yielded one-sixtieth as much for each million 
people as in England ; and the speaker added : " If this- is not con- 
"lusive of the poverty of the people, nothing will satisfy the most 
exacting mind." 

The accumulated wealth of India in the days of Warren Hastings 
was carried away by Englishmen. Now her income is drained to 
England to pay the interest on English investments in railroads and 
public works and the expenses of the English administration. This 
drain is said to be noAv some £30,000,000 a year. As Mill said in his 
History of India : 

It is an extraction of the lifeblood from the veins of national industry, which 
no subsequent introduction of nourishment is furnished to restore. 



HEABING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 159 

And as Lord Salisbury said: 

As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the 
blood is congested. 

A prosperous country [said one authority], is one in which the great mass of 
the inhabitants are able to procure, with moderate toil, what is necessary for 
living human lives, lives of frugal and assured comfort * * * But millions 
cf peasants in India are struggling to live on half an acre. Their existence is a 
constant struggle with starvation, ending too often in defeat. Their difficulty 
is not to live human lives — lives up to the level of their poor standard of 
comfort — but to live at all, and not die. * * * We may truly say that in 
India, except in the irrigated tracts, famine is chronic, endemic. 

Then they destroy the Indian industries, the rare manufactures 
that were produced nowhere else, and, instead. Englishmen are em- 
ploying the Indians in making ordinary cotton cloth in great fac- 
tories and putting an end to India's natural trade. 

Professor Seely, a high English authority, has said of English rule 
in India : 

At best we think of it as a good specimen of a bad political system. We are 
not disposed to be proud of the succession of the Grand Mogul. We doubt 
whether, with all the merits of our administration, the subjects of it are happy. 
We may even doubt whether our rule is preparing them for a happier condition, 
whether it may not be sinking them lower in misery ; and we have our mis- 
givings that perhaps a genuine Asiatic government, and still more a national 
government springing up out of the Hindu population itself, might, in the long 
run, be more beneficial, because more congenial, though perhaps less civilized, 
than such a foreign unsympathetic government as our own. 

That is the testimony of a man who believes in it. Now, here is 
the testimony of another man — that is, Meredith Townsend, the 
author of "Asia and Europe," and a man thoroughly familiar with his 
subject. You will find his book on India most instructive, and it is 
not a very long book. He ssljs : 

Beneath the small film of white men who make up the " Indian Empire " 
boils or sleeps away a sea of dark men. incurably hostile, who await with 
patience the day when the ice shall break and the ocean regain its power of 
restless movement under its own laws. As yet there is no sign that the 
British are accomplishing more than the Romans accomplished in Britain ; that 
they will spread any permanently successful ideas, or that they w^ill found 
anything whatever. It is still true that, if they departed or were driven out, 
they would leave behind them, as the Romans did in Britain, splendid roads, 
many useless buildings, an increased weakness in the subject " people," and a 
memory which in a century of new events would be extinct. 

The chasm betwen the brown man and the white man is unfathomable, has 
existed in all ages, and exists still everywhere. 

And the income of these poor people, the estimated income per 
head, in 1850 was twopence a day; the official estimate in 1882 was 
1^ pence a day, and in 1900 it was less than three-quarters of a penny 
a day. If you look at the English Empire in India from the Govern- 
ment's standpoint, it is a splendid success, but if 3^ou look at it from 
the point of view of the people, whose income has fallen to less than a 
penny a day per head, it is a terrible failure. 

Now, let us look and see what we are doing in the Philippine 
Islands. I have here a table showing what is going on in Balayan, 
Tuy, and Calatagan, in the province of Batangas. 

in 1896 the number of inhabitants in that municipality was 41,308. 
In 1905 it was 13.924. That is a gTeat man}^ people to wipe out. 

Mr. RucKER. ^AHiat has become of them ? 



160 HEAEING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 

Mr. Storey. They have been killed or have died or moved away. 
I do not know what has become of them. The area of cultivated 
land, in hectares, was 19,500 in^ 1896, and 1,700 in 1905 — not 10 
per cent. Products : Eice, 39,020 cavanes in 1896, and 12,500 cavanes 
in 1900; sugar, 520,000 picos in 1896, now 12,300 picos; maize, 110,000 
cavanes in 1896, now^ 10,000 cavanes; the oxen then were 10,000, now 
427 ; the cows then were 3,650, now 80 ; carabaos, oxen, 4,110 in 1896, 
now 433; carabaos, cows, 1,350 in 1896, now 92; there were 11,000 
hogs then, there are now 2,800 ; there were 96,000 hens, there are now 
5,000. Consider what a story those figures tell. 

Mr. RucKER. From what source do you get those figures ? 

Mr. Storey. I got those figures from a letter which was addressed 
by representatives from that province to Hon. William H. Taft, the 
Secretary of War, on the 26th of August, 1905. 

The Chairman. Pardon me for another interruption there. I do 
not know anything about how to account for the death of the other 
animals, but it is known that the rinderpest has destroyed the cara- 
bao there in vast numbers. I had an interview with Mr. Roxas, who, 
I believe, is a nephew of one of the heaviest landowners in the Philip- 
pine Archipelago, and he told me that he had on their plantation 
about 8,000 of these working animals, and that the rinderpest came 
along and killed them so rapidly that it was with great difficulty they 
could be buried. Of the original 8,000 only about 300 survived, I 
believe. 

Mr. Storey. It was a scourge that came there, but I also have no 
doubt that manv of the animals were killed during the war. 

It is very well known that war, pestilence, and famine go together. 
And where you are killing and laying waste the country you are 
cutting off their sources of food and you are bringing about a condi- 
tion where men are prone to disease. And undoubtedly, if one were 
to deal scientifically with the condition of the Philippines, it would 
be found that the rinderpest w^as in part due, as almost every famine 
that follows in the train of war is due, to the absence of the productive 
members of society and to the death and infection that war invariably 
causes. 

I am going to talk to you gentlemen very frankly. You are the 
eyes and ears of the only legislative body that the Philippine Islands 
know. Upon you rests the responsibility of governing those people. 

Now, here in the United States we have States varying in numbers 
from 40,000 people, which I believe is the population of Nevada, up 
to about — I do not know how maii}^ millions in New York. Everyone 
of those States, no matter how small, every city, every town, has a 
legislature devoted exclusively to the interests of the particular State 
or city, and it is the business of that legislature to be in constant 
touch with the people that it governs and to find out what are their 
wants, a business which the legislators attend to, because these people 
have the power to displace them or retain them at their pleasure. 
The ear of the representative is generally open to the complaints of 
his people. The community knows how to bring to his attention what 
it wants and what it will have. 

Now, gentlemen, let me ask you how much of your time and how 
much of your thought is or can be devoted to the needs of the Phil- 
ippine Islands? Consider that you are a legislature. You are here 
representing, in the first place, the citizens of the United States — 



HEAEING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 161 

dealing with the questions that concern them ; and that is enough to 
take your time and attention, the best time, the best thought, and the 
best attention that you can all give. How much is left for the Phil- 
ippine Islands ? How much do you really know about what is going 
on in the Philippine Islands ? 

Let me take a single thing, and that is " reconcentration." We 
went to war with Spain largely because our consciences were out- 
raged by the practice of reconcentration in Cuba. We felt that as a 
civilized people we could not stand by and see those people injured 
in that way. And I remember that President Koosevelt, impatient 
at the delay of President McKinley, is said to have said, " The steps 
of the "^^Hiite House are slippery Avith the blood of the reconcen- 
trados." This illustrates the feeling of the United States on that 
question. 

If anybody had told us then that we should have gone to the Phil- 
ippine Islands and applied that practice on a larger scale than it was 
ever applied in Cuba, and with quite as disastrous results — more 
disastrous results than in Cuba — what should we have said? And 
yet that is what we have been doing. General Miles reported in 1903 
that in that year in a single district 400,000 men were given fifteen 
daj^s to gather their property and come into a few towns. Last year 
the population of two or three towns was turned into a field without 
shelter and without food except that which they brought with them. 
They were left to make for themselves such shelter as they could. 
They were left with such food as they could get, wdth no medical 
attendance, and with such sanitary conditions as are inevitable in 
such circumstances. That is reconcentration under the American 
flag, ^"^liose steps are slippery with the blood of these reconcen- 
trados? The population of Albay (300,000) was subjected to the 
same treatment a year or two ago. Upon whose steps does the blood 
of those people rest ? 

Now, in England, when they were applying reconcentration in 
South Africa, there was published ever}^ month a blue book, which 
stated how many reconcentrado camps there were, hoAv many people 
there were in each — how many men, how many women, how many 
children, and how many of each class had died the previous month. 
The English people were kept thoroughly informed. And not only 
that, but a list was kept of every piece of private property that was 
destroyed, when it was destroyed, how it was destroyed, and Avho de- 
stroyed it, and for what reason. The people were kept fully in- 
formed as to every single thing which went on in South Africa. Do 
the members of this committee know — can they find out — -how many 
people have suffered from reconcentration in the Philippine Islands ? 
Ought not the American people to know what is being done there ? 

I instance that merely as a single case, as one thing which clearly 
illustrates how little the American people know as to what is going 
on in those islands, and unless we know the facts how can we govern ? 

The great trouble that Ave are having there is this: Our whole 
policy rests upon the assumption that the Filipinos are inferior and 
ignorant ; that they are not fit to be trusted, and that they can not be 
believed. And if that is the attitude of the whole country, can j^ou 
wonder that the soldiers and the civil administrators, the directors 
and representatives of this country who are sent out there, reflect 
that feeling? Is it not perfectly certain that when they come to deal 



162 HEAEIXG BEFOEE HOUSE COMMITTEE OX IXSULAK AEFAIES. 

with the Filipinos they let them understand that they are inferior 
and deal Tvith them as such '? The Filipinos Trelcomed*^ us with open 
arms. "We were friends : we were deliverers ; there was nothing too 
good for us; but in a short time our soldiers were walking along 
the streets, hustling them into the gTitter, and speaking of them as 
'* niggers," and making it perfectly plain to them that we considered 
them our inferiors. 

If 3^ou have ever been to a country muster, you know what the 
soldiers do, even in this country. If you have ever been to college, 
you know what the young men do. Young men everywhere, when they 
are relieved from the pressure of public opinion and from the imme- 
diate restraint of discipline, are very apt to amuse themselves at the 
expense of anybody who is a little weaker and whom they can safely 
bully. They '* haze " each other, and they *' haze " casual strangers. 
We go to the Philippine Islands and take particular pains to let those 
people understand that we consider them inferior, and that attitude 
insures the failure of any attempt on our part to govern the Fili- 
pinos. No government in the world can succeed when the governors 
do not believe in, do not trust, do not sympathize with the peoj^le 
that they are governing. You clothe you administrators with arbi- 
trary power. The life of the Filipino is substantially at the mercy 
of any officer of the constabulary, and the lives of a great many 
Filipinos have been taken in all sorts of illegal, outrageous, cruel 
ways during these last years, and there is no constitution to defend 
them. 

Now, what is a constitution? Why do we have a constitution in 
this country? The Constitution is a law which is devised to protect 
the weak and the poor against the strong and the rich, to protect 
ignorance against knowledge, to protect the minority and the indi- 
vidual against the majority. We who are sitting here now should 
not feel safe in the enjoyment of our property if there were no con- 
stitution between us and the legislators of our own choice, of our 
own natures, of our own blood. There is not a court in this country 
that has not decided year after year that many acts of the legislature 
are not legal. A great debate is now going on in the Senate on a 
question which deals with the constitutional rights of American citi- 
zens — their rights under that Constitution which we say is necessary 
to protect us. And yet we say that these seven or eight millions of 
people thousands of miles awa}^ from us can be safely trusted to 
two or three Americans, without any constitution to stand between 
them and the arbitrary power of those men. 

If there is any lesson that history teaches, it is that arbitrary 
power of one man or one nation over another is certain to injure the 
man or the nation that exercises it. There is no despot who does 
not steadily go down hill as soon as he is trusted with power. And 
that is the whole secret of government. There is no proposition 
more fundamental than this, that a government which controls 
8,000,000 of people, without a constitution, without adequate super- 
vision, without any real knowledge of what is going on in their coun- 
try, is certain to fail. 

The Chaurmax. You say that they have no constitution there. 
The people of the Philippines have, by statute passed by the Con- 
gress of the United States, a complete bill of rights, which was 
copied from the Constitution of the United States, with the addition 



HEAEING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAE AFFAIKS. 163 

of several provisions from various State constitutions, and this bill 
of rights is as complete as that of any citizen of the United States, 
excepting that it does not give them the right to bear arms nor the 
right of trial by jury. 

Mr. Stokey. The law is suspended at the will of the Commission, 
and they have no voice in their own government. 

The Chairman. No; neither the bill of rights nor the statutes 
passed by Congress can be suspended at the will of the Commission. 
Next spring there is to be an election for members of the lower house. 

Mr. Storey. AVhich will have exactly the power that the lower 
house has in Porto Rico — that is to sslj, the power to do nothing, the 
power to suggest. Just put it to yourself, sir. 

The Chairman. I do not wish to make any improper interrup- 
tions, but I want to get at what are the real facts in the case and look 
at it from all sides. Is it speaking with entire accuracy to say that 
the Congress of the United States has turned over seven or eight mil- 
lions of people to the unrestricted, arbitrar}^ poAver of two or three or 
more Americans? 

Mr. Storey. I think it is, sir. 

The Chairman. When that bill of rights is there, and when they 
have a supreme court and other courts composed largely of Filipino 
judges, and the chief justice of the supreme court and two other mem- 
bers of that court are native Filipinos, and Secretary Taft savs that 
it is a court which will compare favorably with the suprem? co irt of 
any State in the United States? 

Mr. Storey. But the Secretary is at the same time preparing a bill 
to take the power of appointing these judges from the Philippine 
Commission, because he thinks they should not be trusted widi it. 

Mr. Parsons. May I correct that statement ? " That is not his 
reason. His reason is because some people there think that tlie Com- 
mission exercises improper control. Fie thinks it just as well to 
change it, but he does not admit for a moment that there was any 
improper control exercised. 

Mr. Pucker. There is some belief, however, that improper control 
has been exercised by the Commission, not by the Secretary, and I 
am verv strongly impressed myself with the idea that those complaints 
are well founded. 

The Chairman. It was in sending judges to circuit courts on spe- 
cial occasions. 

Mr. Storey. What the Secretary has said is this : 

Speaking from my personal- and intimate acquaintance, I linow of no case in 
which there has been undue interference with the courts. 

And that is from a very careful statement in a very carefully prepared 
speech. No case can be proven of undue interference. Who is to 
decide what is " undue interference ? " There is no denial that there 
has been interference ; only it is impossible to prove any case of undue 
interference. The Secretary then goes on to say : 

Tliere is under the present system an opportunity for such interference that, I 
thinlc, can not be denied. 

And therefore he is strongly in favor of giving the President alone 
the power to apjDoint and remove judges. 

Mr. Storey. You say that Congress has passed a law giving those 
people certain rights, which is so. But the same power that passed 



164 HEAEIXG BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE OX IXSI'LAE AEFAIES. 

that law mav repeal it and the power that is called upon to execute it 
stispend it. 

The Chaiemax. The people of the United States have a right to 
repeal or abrogate the Constitution. 

Mr. Stoeey. Thev have, but if they do it is their own act. 

Mr. Ktcker. There is no danger of the people amending the Con- 
stittition. T\"e are unable to change the present method of the election 
of the Senators. Everybody wants it done, but we can not get it done. 

Mr. StopvEy. ^ATiat you say of the Filipino jtidges is inconsistent 
with the theory that the Filipinos can not govern themselves. Take 
the govermnent of Porto Eico. Suppose it was proposed to establish 
stich a government in the State of AVisconsin. Let the people of that 
State elect a lower hotise. and the governor of Xew York appoint five 
Xew Yorkers to act as a senate, in whom the whole executive power 
should be vested, and no act could be passed without their consent. 
T\"ould the people of Wisconsin, because they elected the lower house, 
believe that they had a popular govermnent ? 

The Chaiemax. Let me answer that by saying that Thomas Jef- 
ferson, who was one of the greatest believers in the prmciple of democ- 
racy, appointed a commission with greater powers in Louisiana. 

Mr. Stoeey. For a very short time during the transfer of sove- 
reignty. 

The Chaiemax. For a very short time. I know. 

Mr. Stoeey. In a few months Louisiana was given self-government, 
and I am only asking you to follow Jefferson's example. ^Te have 
had a commission for eight years, and now it is time to give self- 
government. 

The Chaiemax. However, are not the conditions very different ? 

Mr. Stoeey. AVe need only to step across the Mississippi River. 
There there were a gTeat many different races, civilized and savage. 
There were a gTeat many savages in this cotintry. 

The Chaiemax. But we did not give the Indians self-government 
ss we understand that word. 

^Ir. Stoeey. Oh, yes ; we did. 

The Chaiemax. Very few of them. 

^Lr. Stoeey. Every one of them. All our relations with the Indians 
have been through treaties. TTe have recognized the Indians as in- 
dependent powers in our ixddst. 'SVe have not endeavored to govern 
the Indians. A treaty can not be made with subjects. But. we have 
left them among themselves to govern themselves. There is no better 
illustration than that very case which you put. This country has 
been inconsistent in letting the Indians govern themselves if they were 
subjects here in our midst. 

T\Tiat do you say about rights granted under the Constitution when 
in the territory of Albay a comnnssion can pass a law giving the 
military officers power to issue an order saying that 300.000 people 
can be 'taken from the cultivation of their crops, deprived of their 
property, and herded together like cattle in a small space ? 

Mr. Ritckee. Have we any records from the Philippine Islands 
showing that such a condition as that exists ? 

Mr. Stoeey. Xo: the facts have not been published, but they exist. 
Such things are not published, but this condition is a fact. If you 
gentlemenVill take the pains to go to the TTar Department and get 



HEAEING BEFOEE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAE AFFAIES. 165 

all the information the Department has you will find them, or you 
will find that they have no records. It is an illustration of the way 
the American people are dealing with the Filipinos. 

We have a good many burglars in Boston, and burglars whom we 
would like to catch, but as long as the rest of us are on the streets it 
is impossible to find them out. Suppose that the entire population 
of Boston, in order to catch those burglars, were placed on one of the 
islands in our harbor, and were told, " Take as much food as you will 
need ; we can not tell how long you will be kept. We do not provide 
you with any shelter ; go there and look after yourselves." 

Well, that is what we have done in the Philippines. Is it not a 
mere juggling with words to say that those people have civil rights, 
or any rights whatever, when they can be dealt with thus? Are 
such proceedings consistent with the law? Another trouble is thai 
our representatives are untrained in the government of alien peoples 
If you want a man to practice law, you give him a training in a 
law school for a certain number of years. If he is going to practice 
medicine, he goes to a medical school. There is not a single thing 
that a man undertakes to do in this country in the way of managing 
a business, like a railroad or a mill, for which he is not carefully 
trained until he can be safely trusted with the management of the 
business. But when the business is governing 8,000,000 people we 
say: "This man who has been a professor; this man who has been 
a judge; that man who has been a lawyer; this man who has been 
a teacher; this young man who has been a business man engaged 
in building electric railways, perhaps — excellent men all of them — 
are fit to be sent to govern a people whose language they do not 
know, whose traditions they know nothing whatever about, whose 
ideas they do not understand, whose methods of thought they do not 
understand, Avithout any training in this business, they can go there 
and succeed." They can not succeed, gentlemen. It is not in human 
nature possible that they should succeed. 

AA^ien England undertakes to govern India, her men start at the 
bottom. They are admitted to the service by competitive examina- 
tion. They slowly work their way up to the top. We have had no 
such system. Take Egypt, which is an instance of England's suc- 
cess. Did it ever occur to jow that in dealing with Egypt you are 
comparing English despots with Turkish despots. The conditions 
which England found there were conditions of misrule. It is not 
surprising that the Englishman has improved the situation, but 
what has he done? The Turk still governs. The whole machinery 
of government is in the hands of the same men that were governing 
Egypt, the same class of men that were governing Egypt when the 
English went there. The English sent a very able man there, and 
kept him there for eighteen years; not to govern, but to advise. It 
is true that his advice must be taken, but it comes as advice, not 
command. When Kitchener was made a general of the Egyptian 
army, they did not give him the title of general. He entered the 
service of the Egyptians as sirdar. 

The conditions of success are that the manager remain a great 
many years. He should be permanent. If joii change him once a 
month, once a year, or once in two years, you can not have that con- 
tinuity of administration which is essential. We are never going to 



166 HEAKING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE 01^ INSULAK AFFAIRS. 

get Americans to settle in the Philippine Islands. We are never 
going to be content to live there. No Englishman in all these cen- 
turies has ever gone to India to settle. No man goes there to bring 
up his family. No English farmer, no English manufacturer goes 
to India. They are aliens; sojourners for a time. Their children 
go back to England. And this is inevitably so, must always be so, 
always has, and always will be. 

How is it in the Philippine Islands? What young American is 
going to cast his lot in those islands ? They go out for a year or two. 
They go out there to stay for a little while. They go out to make 
money to be used at home. Sometimes they go out from a sense of 
duty. But they won't go there to live among the people, and to 
understand their customs, their needs, and their language. And, 
therefore, you are always going to have difficulty. The United States 
is too tempting. It is much pleasant er to live here. It is much more 
agreeable living among people that one knows than it is to exile 
oneself and undertake to govern the people in the Philippines. What 
you put in on one side of the scales absolutely outweighs what you 
put in the other. And while those conditions do exist, you are going 
to have a government of misrule. 

In the eight years that we have been in the island there has 
already been established a race problem. We regard the Filipinos 
as Indians. It is a great deal pleasanter to put our heads into the 
sand and pretend that they are getting along perfectly well together. 
That is human nature. The country does not like to talk about the 
Philippines. We say, " They are getting along very Avell ; and don't 
bother us with them," But, as a fact, we have tAvo irreconcilable 
elements living in the same islands. And as if one race problem at 
our doors was not enough, Ave have undertaken to establish another 
race problem on the other side of the Pacific. 

Here is what Secretary Taft has said : 

The American merchants easilj^ caught the feeling of hostility and contempt 
felt by many of the soldiers for the Filipinos. * * * The American news- 
papers, ^Yhich were established, readily took the tone of their advertisers 
and their subscribers, and hence it is that the American community in the 
Philippines to-day is largely an anti-Filipino community, prone to call them 
names, to make fun of them, to deride every effort toward their advancement 
and development. * * * This is unfortunate, and there must come into the 
islands a new set of merchants, who shall view the situation from an entirely 
different standpoint. 

What legislation will you adopt to get into those islands a new set 
of merchants ? Will you select the offenders from the American peo- 
ple who live there, and send them away? Just so long as we do not 
trust the Filipino our government is bound to be a failure, and that 
condition is going to continue. The race problem which we can not 
settle here is going to be a new race problem on the other side of the 
Pacific. 

Now, let me give an illustration, which may, perhaps, come home to 
you all. Suppose the Filipinos are not satisfied with their governors, 
and that they have good cause to complain. It may be that those gen- 
tlemen whom we have sent out there have been right. I am willing 
to admit that they have done their best. But, since we sometimes 
in the United States have men in control of our cities whom we do 
not trust, it is barely possible that there may come out to the Philip- 



HEAKING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 167 

pine Islands some people who are improper governors. AVould you 
people here believe what the Filipino people say against the state- 
ments of our own citizens ? 

Let me put a case to you. In 1865 we in the Northern States were 
in a position to govern the Southern States. The population of 
these two sections was the same in blood, the same in tradition, the 
same in language, the same in essential sympathy. We were bound 
to each other by every sort of tie, by marriage, by business, by asso- 
ciation of all kinds. We were dealing with them. Through the tele- 
graph, the newspapers and letters, there was communication between 
us ever}^ hour of every day. There was not a thing going on in 
those Southern States that was not brought to our attention by South- 
ern men, year in and year out. And we sent men to govern those 
people Avhom we noAv look back upon with a good deal of shame. 
We governed the Southern States for something like eleven j^ears. 
They are badly governed, and when they complained we said, " No; 
you are disloyal. Though you are our brothers, we do not believe 
what you say." 

Now, if we did not believe what those men said from 1865 to 1876, 
wdll the time ever come when we shall believe what the Filipino peo- 
ple say against our governors. Take the governors of anv city 
in this country, take the directors of great insurance companies, and 
ask them if they have done their duty, and they will tell you that 
their administration has been honest — as faithful, as efficient as it is 
possible for the administration of a great company to be. 

I have no doubt that the man who was recently expelled from the 
control of Cincinnati would tell you that the government of that city 
was honest and pure. I suppose the Philadelphia ring would praise 
their own career. If you were sitting hei*^ to try the question of 
whether the government of Philadelphia was or was not honest, you 
would have just as much testimony in favor of the governors as you 
had testimony from the governed. There would be a conflict of tes- 
timony. There was no conflict of testimony in Philadelphia. They 
knew exactly where the control was; they knew whether they had 
been governed honestly or not. And that is what self-government 
means. We may have no evidence against a man whom we know in 
our hearts to be a rascal. If we are asked to prove it in a court of 
justice we can not do it, but the whole community may know it, as 
we know much that we can not prove, and that is what makes it safe 
to trust the people Avith the power to govern themselves. 

Now, you take from the Filipinos the right of appeal, all voice in 
their government, no matter what the form is. They appeal to deaf 
ears. You say that the responsibility of governing them rests upon 
us. We are too busy to do it; and our experience there has merely 
exemplified what was said a great many years ago by a very excellent 
historian, John Stuart Mill, who said : 

The government of a people by itself has a meaning and a reality, but such 
a thing as a government of one people by another does not and can not exist. 
One people may keep another as a warren or preserve for its own use, a place 
to make money in. a human cattle farm, to be worlvcd for the profits of its 
own inhabitants ; but, if the good of the governed is the proper business of a 
government, it is utterly impossible that a people should directly attend to it. 



168 HEAKIXG BEFOEE HOUSE COMMITTEE OX I:N'SULAE AEFAIES. 

The historian Fronde said : 

If tliere be one lesson which history clearly teaches, it is this, that free na- 
tions can not govern subject provinces. If they are unable or unwilling to 
admit their dependencies to share their own constitution, the constitution itself 
will fall in pieces through mere incompetence for its duties. 

Or, as Lincoln more briefly pnt it : 

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a 
just God can not long retain it. 

Mr. Gilbert. What do you say to this proposition, that those 
islands would soon be dominated by the Japanese or the Chinese, and 
that the future condition of the Philippines v^^ould be vrorse instead 
of better ? 

Mr. Storey. Pass this resolution and make a treaty that will keep 
those people out of the islands. Make them agree with us that when 
we let our child try to walk they won't step in and knock him down. 

Mr. Gilbert. AATiat assurance have we that we could get those 
oriental countries to enter into such a treaty ? 

Mr. Storey. There is an ancient story which I shall try to tell. 
An old negro, when he was asked if he had absolute faith in God, 
said '' Yes.'' He was then asked : " If God directed you to butt your 
head through that stone wall would you do it? " '* Well," he replied, 
" I should butt at it ; butting at it belong to me ; getting through it 
belongs to God." In this particular case, however, I have not the 
remotest doubt that if the United States asked Japan or any other 
power to agree to this treaty they would do so. 

The Chairman. Do you think that the resolution ought to specify 
the conditions? 

!Mr. Storey. Xo, sir. « 

The Chairmax. Would you leave it entirely to the discretion of the 
President ? 

Mr. Storey. I think so ; yes. 

The Chair3iax. There is another resolution of somewhat similar 
purport introduced by Mr. Burgess, which specifically instructs the 
President to consider the expediency of opening negotiations with 
Great Britain, Germany, France. Kussia, Italy, Spain, and Japan. 

Mr. Parsoxs. Is China included ? 

Mr. Storey. I think that China might very properly come in. 
It is one of the things which. I think, might be included in a treaty 
with China. 

The Chair^iax. Do you think that there ought to be anything more 
in the way of conditions or requirements ? There is in this resolution 
no condition as to agreements or terms. 

Mr. Storey. I should be very glad if Congress proposes in addition 
to say what treaty it wants. But I think that if seven or eight diplo- 
matists could sit down together they could draw up a treaty in a short 
time. 

The Chairman. Let me call your attention to another condition. 
By the other resolution we r.nderstand that when established, the 
Philippine government shall agree to maintain equality of trade rela- 
tions toward all the signatory powers, and that in the event of war 
between any of the nations of the earth, it shall be neutral. Would 
it not be well if we were to pass a resolution of that character to have 
something of that kind incorporated in it ? 



HEAEING BEFOEE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 169 

Mr. Storey. I see no objection to incorporating both those pro- 
visions. 

Mr. RucKER. Have you read the resohition introduced by Mr. 
Burgess ? 

Mr. Storey. Xo, sir ; I have not. 

Mr. Hubbard. If the United States negotiated any such treaty as is 
suggested by this resohition, would not the other powers necessarily 
insist upon an adjustment of trade relations? 

Mr. Storey. I suppose they would ; yes. 

]\Ir. Hubbard. And also open an adjustment of relations as to per- 
sonal intercourse. For instance, immigration. Japan and China 
would insist that so far as they were concerned the gates should be 
wide open to immigration into the Philippine Islands. 

The Chairman. Well, in that connection, if China is to be nego- 
tiated with, and any such condition is to be in the treaty, as has just 
been intimated by Judge Hubbard, there w^oulcl be war at once, be- 
cause the Filipinos to-day strenuousl}^ object to letting down the bars 
to the immigration of Chinese coolies. 

Mr. Storey. I fancy that we could leave China out of the compact 
altogether. 

The Chairman. Still, she is somewhat aggTessive, and her boycott 
on American goods is becoming more strenuous every day. It is the 
only way they have of objecting to our exclusion policy. 

Mr. Storey. It is only human nature. They say, " If you do not 
want to play with us, we would rather not play with you." 

I have an impression that it is a sound rule of political economy 
that it never pays to do yourself what you can get somebod}^ else to 
do for you more cheaply. China is not a nation that desires to have 
her coolies leave her country. The trouble that we are having with 
China is not because we do not permit her citizens to live as our citi- 
zens and do our work; it is because we do not permit her educated 
ones without indignity to enter our ports and travel through our 
country. Our policy in regard to immigration is pretty severe, 
and I will give you an illustration, Avhich, perhaps, may affect you. 

Some years ago, you will remember, there Avas a massacre of 
Armenians in Constantinople, and the whole civilized world held its 
hands up in horror. I think it was said that they killed some 60,000 
people. Among those surviving were a certain number of Armenian 
merchants who had been in Constantinople, and who fled for their 
lives to ships in the harbor. After the massacre they were not 
allowed to return, and they naturally took with them nothing but 
what they had on their backs. They started to go to Marseille, but 
for some reason did not land there; and then they came to Boston, 
and we said to them, " Though we sympathize with you, we do not 
want you here, and you can not land," and had all the other nations 
been as illiberal those unhappy Armenians who had survived the 
massacre had better have perished, because they might have had to 
travel ahvays, and they might have found no place where they could 
have put their feet on land. There was a gentleman in Boston, him- 
self an Armenian, who came forward and gave bonds for the whole 
of them — bonds in the sum of $50,000 — and I was appointed by the 
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to scrutinize his security, in 
order to make sure that the bond was good, which I did. 

Now, it seems to me for a great country like ours to say to those 



170 HEARIISTG BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFEAIES. 

unhajDpy people that they could not land on our shores, and could 
have no share whatever in our prosperity, was just as cruel as it was 
for the Turks to kill the rest of them. I have always had a strong 
admiration for the Armenian who was willing to do what the whole 
80,000,000 of people were not willing to do, and that was to guarantee 
those men a living. 

Mr. Parsons. Returning to the conditions in the Philippines, have 
we not taken a very different course with respect to the Philip- 
pines from that taken by the English in India, and even that taken 
b}^ the English in Egypt ? 

Mr. Storey. Yes ; I think we have. 

Mr. Parsons. The establishment of a common school system is a 
step which the English have never been willing to take in their col- 
onies. Is not that so ? 

Mr. Storey. I think that is true. I have no doubt it is true. But, 
of course, when ^^ou say that we have established a common school 
sj^stem, what we have done is to appoint some teachers, tell them what 
they shall teach, and then tell the Filipinos to pay the bill. We say 
to them, " Your houses are not quite as well furnished as are those 
of the more prosperous people on this side of the water. We want 
to be benevolent to you. Your hou^e is badly painted. We will 
send you a lot of furniture; we will paint your house; and the bill 
will come to you." They reply, '' Our treasury is overburdened; our 
commerce is destroyed; we can not get bread to put in our months." 
The United States is making the Filipinos pay citizens of the United 
States for teaching them things that perhaps they do not want to 
learn. 

Mr. Parsons. As a matter of fact, is not the public school system 
that we have established there popular with the Filipinos, as a rule? 

Mr. Storey. I take it that the Filipinos are very much like other 
human beings, and that they appreciate the benefit of schooling for 
the children; but a pill that is thrust down a man's throat by some- 
body he does not like is pretty apt to be objected to. I think we 
should object. If we put ourselves in the Filipinos' place I think 
we should object very much, indeed. 

Mr. Parsons. But do the}^ object? 

Mr. Storey. I think they do. Perhaps they do not make their ob- 
jections very loud. 

The Chairman. Judge Storey, there is this fact to be taken into 
consideration : If the Filipinos had had a common school system, or 
any effective school system, before we went there, with which they 
were satisfied at all, and then we undertook to substitute our common 
school system, and had, as you say, crammed it down their throats, 
they might be hostile; but, as a matter of fact, they had no general 
system of education, and they yearned for it, and in certain provinces 
petitioned for it. I heard officers say when I was there last summer 
that they were delighted with what they had, and that that was the 
one thing with which all the Filipinos were pleased — that their 
children were being educated. 

Mr. Rucker. They never had a school system during the three 
hundred years of Spanish rule. 

Mr. Storey. I have no doubt whatever that a great many of the 
Filipinos are glad of the instruction. At the same time, I am sure 
that a great many of them feel that the expense of the school system 



HEAKING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAK AEFAIES. 171 

should not be imposed upon them. Before we went there they had 
begun to establish a school system. They had normal schools and 
had begun to establish a school system. They appreciated the ad- 
vantages of such a system, and they were establishing it in their 
own way. But the great trouble is that we do not recognize the 
fact that the Americans and the Filipinos are different. We say that 
they are inferior and imagine that we can take a Filipino and make 
him an American. We do not recognize the essential difference, and 
we do not treat them sympathetically. The Mohammedans are much 
more successful as missionaries in India than the English, because 
a Mohammedan treats his pupil as a brother. He takes him to 
his home, while the Englishman talks to him in church and cuts him 
on the street. 

I believe that the whole vice of our system is that we are trying to 
make an Asiatic into a Yankee. You might as well try to make a 
pine tree into a palm by grafting as to try to make an Asiatic into 
an Englishman. Those essential differences are there. Centuries of 
English rule have not made Irishmen into Englishmen. An Irish- 
man and an Englishman are very different. Even Americans are 
different. There is a great difference between the people from one 
section of the country and those from another section. Those differ- 
ences can not be eradicated. They must be recognized and respected. 
When we say to the Filipinos that they can govern themselves ulti- 
mately, but that it will be a century before they will be independent, 
it is a long way off, and we might as well say that we never will make 
them independent. 

Mr. Parsons. Do we say that? 

Mr. Storey. We are very careful not to say so too distinctly. 

Mr. Gilbert. Is it not the law of civilization that it progresses 
through the stronger races conquering the weaker ones? Did not 
)Spain drive out the Moors ? 

Mr. Storey. Had the Romans crushed the Greeks? Had the Ro- 
mans who invaded Gaul destroyed that people they would doubtless 
have said that civilization was the gainer, but we know that the re- 
verse is true. The expulsion of the Moors was a calamity to Spain, 
as it was to France when the Huguenots were driven to England. 
The French lost the trained artificers, who in no small part laid the 
foundation of England's manufacturing supremacy. We have killed 
a great many Indians, as the Spaniards did before us. If they had 
been left alone, as they were intended to. live, I have no doubt that 
they would have brought into the human race something that was 
worth having. It is rather amusing to see how we used to think about 
Irishmen. 

Mr. Gilbert. You apply your argument to the aborigines of Aus- 
tralia. Do you think that the introduction of English would be a 
calamity to the aborigines? 

Mr. Storey. Yes; if the English exterminated them. ^^Hien we 
went to Japan we found that country inhabited by a people not very 
unlike the people of the Philippine Islands. If we had gone to work 
there and driven them all out, and colonized the country with Ameri- 
cans, we should always have looked back to that as a case where the 
superior race had triumphed and the inferior race had been driven 
out. Instead of that, we thought these men worthy of saving. We 
left them to govern themselves, and the result is that you have an 



172 HEAKING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSUXAE AFFAIES. 

Asiatic power of the first class; and the Japanese in science, in medi- 
cine, in war, and in everything else have shown themselves our equals. 
Xow, if we may apply the same argument to the aborigines every- 
where, the difference between them and other aborigines is by no 
means clear. 

I want to read you now, just for a moment, something which may 
perhaps amaze you a little. TThen James II brought the Irish troops 
to England, this is the way in which the feeling of the English was 
expressed by Macaulay : 

No man of English blood then regarded the aboriginal Irish as his country- 
men. They did not belong to our branch of the great human family. They 
were distinguished from us by more than one moral and intellectual peculiarity. 
They had an aspect of their ovrn. a mother tongue of their own. When they 
talked English their pronunciation was ludicrous, their phraseology was gro- 
tesque. * * * They were therefore foreigners : and of all foreigners they 
were the most hated, for they had during fire centuries always been our enemies ; 
the most despised, for they were our vanquished, enslaved, and despoiled 
enemies. They were regarded as stupid and cowardly. 

Could the inferiority of the Filipinos be painted in any stronger 
language than this? "Stupid and cowardly!" Strike from the 
annals of the English Parliament the speeches of Irish orators, from 
the records of the English army the deeds of Irish generals and 
soldiers, from English literature the works of Irishmen and there 
would be very little left — much less than there is now. You may 
take the history of the Irish in every coimtry of Europe. You find 
that they have given a President to France, and also many able gen- 
erals; to Spain a prime minister; to Austria. Eussia. and other 
European cotmtries soldiers, prelates, and diplomats of the highest 
rank. There is no foreign court where there has not been some 
Irishman who has taken the highest honors. I have a belief that 
when the Creator made of one blood all the nations upon earth, he 
had a use for them all. and that if they were properly treated and 
developed they would all be fotmd useful. 

I am no believer in the doctrine that because men are stronger 
they have a divine right to kill others who are weaker. If you 
applied that doctrine you would consider TVashington a weakling by 
the side of John L. Sullivan. Eev. Lyman Abbot would confess that 
Sullivan is a very superior person if the test is physical strength. 
Xow, in these people there are certain qualities which we are apt to 
find very strongly in the colored people. We are strong and ener- 
getic, but some of the other races have gentler qualities which we 
lack. It takes all kinds of people to make up the world. And I 
think, to deal with the general proposition, that the progress of the 
world has not been helped by the tendency to obliterate the weak. 

Mr. ErcKEE. Does it not after all. as a matter of fact, involve the 
question of trade relations between the Philippine Islands and these 
nations? It would involve the most complicated negotiations with 
these nations, and we would have to gve tip all, practically, to them. 

!Mr. Storey. All what? 

Mr. EucKER. TVe would have to give up all exclusive rights that 
we possess with relation to the Philippines. TTe would have to give 
up exclusive control and practically place the islands under a pro- 
tectorate. Otherwise, we would be left with the responsibility, and 
none of the advantage. 



HEAKING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 173 

Mr. Storey. That is where we are now. We have got the responsi- 
bility without the advantages. 

Mr. RucKER. I think that whatever advantage there may be, 
whether it be great or small, we should have; and we would be just 
as responsible as before and obtain all possible advantages. 

Mr. Storey. You will bear in mind that the policy of the open door 
should be applied everywhere, and that we can not successfully de- 
fend the doctrine that the door is going to be open in the Philippines 
to none but ourselves. What would be the result of undertakmg to 
say that we are going to keep the door of the Philippines shut, but we 
want to go into China ? 

Mr. Hubbard. But does England open Hongkong, for instance, 
upon terms of absolute equality ? 

Mr. Storey. I remember Bismarck saying to Mr. Schurz — I think 
it was to Mr. Schurz — " Why should Germany undertake to interfere 
with the colonies of England, when it is true that wherever the Eng- 
lish flag floats a German has every right that an Englishman has? " 
The colonies of England are open to everybody to trade. Our theory 
is that every other door should be open and ours should be shut. T 
should be glad to see that policy abandoned in the Philippines. 

The Chairman. In connection with the resolution, we come to this 
other question. When do you wish the United States, or what date 
do you wish the United States to fix for its withdrawal from the 
islands? 

Mr. Storey. I think that you can pass the resolution without fix- 
ing that date. If I were legislating, I would apply now to the Phil- 
ippines the same rule that we applied with such success in Cuba. I 
should say to the Filipinos, " Call your constitutional convention, 
frame your system, and as soon as your government is formed and 
ready to take control we will let you have your country." 

The CiiAiRiNtAN. Are not these cases very different? Cuba is one 
island, with one people, speaking the same language — a homogeneous 
population. Here are a thousand islands, with many dialects. There 
are 20 different dialects in the island of Luzon alone, and approxi- 
mately 60 in the whole archipelago. Secretary Taft testifies that 
when he was within 100 miles of Manila, in the island of Luzon, he 
attended a theatrical performance, and with him was Chief Justice 
Arrellano, a native Tagalog, a scholarly man, of extraordinary legal 
ability. A¥hile the performance was in progress, Secretary Taft 
turned to Chief Justice Arrellano and said : " Mr. Chief Justice, 
what is this thej^ are saying? " And the chief justice answered: " I 
do not know what they are talking about." 

Well, now then, is it not true that there is all the difference in the 
world between a population like that, of tribes which do not consti- 
tute a homogeneous population, inhabitating island after island, 
thousands of whom and millions of whom have never seen each other 
or had any chance to get acquainted with each other or their cus- 
toms, establishing a government for themselves in the nature of a 
republic, and the island of Cuba here, where, as I said before, the 
population is compact, in a very small area, and homogeneous? 

Mr. Storey. I could probably, if I had been Lord North, have 
made almost the same statement in 1776 about America. I could have 
called attention to the fact that the territory which was claimed by 



174 HEAEIXG BEFOEE HOUSE COMMITTEE OX IXSULAE AEFAIES. 

the thirteen colonies had not less than probably 150 different tribes^ 
epeaking different languages, many of them/ and hostile to each 
other. And yet it would not in the least degree have affected the 
general proposition that that community ^ras entitled to its inde- 
pendence. Xow. to take tliis particular illustration, it may be that 
Arrellano did not understand the particular company that was en- 
gaged in performing, but I venture to say that the audience would 
not have understood the company if they had been performing in 
English. English is a foreign language to all those people. If the 
difference in language is all. that should not govern as the reason 
why we should linger. Those people who are there, who know all 
these facts just as well as we do. and a good deal better, are all satis- 
fied that they can wisely have and use their independence. On that 
question. I would rather trust them at home on their own soil than 
trust any judgment that you and I can form at this distance, or even 
from the slight acquaintance that any of tis may have had. 

Mr. Paesoxs. Yoti quoted me a wliile ago as saying that all the 
FilijDinos were in favor of independence. TTliat I said was that all 
the political parties were in favor of independence — all the political 
parties. 

Mr. EucKEE. Does not the complication suggested by the chairman 
make it qtiite as difficult for tis to govern them as it would for them to 
govern themselves? Isn't it true that Americans — even members of 
Congress — go to performances in the city of TTashington and then 
can not imderstand a word that is said on the stage ? [Laughter.] 

Mr. McCall. Mr. Hoar suggests to me what might be a fact, that 
any one of us might go out in Eepresentative TTilliam Alden Smith's 
district, in the town of Holland, and go to church and we would not 
understand a word of the sermon. 

Mr. Stoeey. I have been to church in Cape Breton, where the 
service begins with a service in English and ends with a service in 
Gaelic, and those who have listened to the English can not under- 
stand the Gaelic, and vice versa, btit they live peacefully together, 
vote at the same j)olls, and govern themselves. I think that very 
likely the Philippine government would have its troubles. The 
American Govermiient has its. Yoti say that they would have civil 
wars. Have we been free from them ? Is the fact that we have had 
a civil war any reason why we were not fit for governing ourselves ? 
There has not been any such monumental example of fighting in the 
history of the world as we have furnished. Through that way, 
through struggles, through difficulties men make their way to free- 
dom. " You put your child on his feet and let him walk. The first 
thing he does is to tumble down and hit his head against a table. Do 
you say it is the end? This child must never try to walk again. 
On the contrary, you let him go on and learn by repeated falls, per- 
haps even by putting his hand on a hot stove. Xow. nations are 
taught in exactly the same way. Xo nation can possibly learn to 
govern itself unless it is given a chance to try. It will make mis- 
takes, as we all make mistakes. At this very session of Congress — 
if it is not treasonable to say so — we are certainly making mistakes. 

Mr. HoAE. We have not adjotirned yet. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Stoeey. There is no government in this world, there is no man 
in this world, that does not make mistakes, and the only way in which 
a man learns not to make mistakes is to be independent. Take 



HEARING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. l75 

England. The Komans were in England for three hundred or four 
hundred years, and when they left they left the English people to 
fight barbarian invaders. They left them to be the prey to Danish, 
Scotch, and Welsh incursions, and to domestic dissension, unable to 
govern themselves until the}^ had passed through a series of struggles 
for two hundred or three hundred years. But they were worth sav- 
ing, and they learned to be worth saving by the fights which they 
went through. They made mistakes, and that is true of every nation 
in the world. 

The Filipinos started well. They started with rather high ideals. 
I believe that if we had given them a chance they would have suc- 
ceeded. If we had dealt with them as we did with Japan, the result 
would have been as good. They might have made mistakes. If we 
give them a chance now, they will make mistakes. They may become 
involved, more or less, in fighting with each other, but I venture to 
say that there would not be as much life or property destroyed in the 
Philippine Islands in one hundred and fifty years in internecine con- 
flicts among themselves as we have destroyed in the six years since 
we began to govern them. Well, I do not think that I can add any- 
thing to what I have said. 

Mr. KucKER. I want to ask a question with reference to the schools 
over there. As I understood the chairman, you gave some expression, 
an opinion that you had expressed to you while in the Philippine 
Islands. 

The Chairman. Yes. 

Mr. EucKER. When with what is familiarly spoken of as the " Taft 
party " — now, I want to ask this question merely for information — ■ 
did the Taft party, composed as it was of the most distinguished 
citizens of this country, under the leadership of the former governor 
of the islands, did it come into contact with the average .Filipino 
citizen, the average common laboring man, or with just those who 
were holding positions where they had been put by the United States 
Government, and whose feelings and inclinations and whose state- 
ments were, perhaps, warped by some of those things ? 

The Chairman. In reply to that question I will say that we met 
practically all classes. We met men who occupied the better part of 
two or three days in demanding independence for the archipelago. 
They were allowed to talk for their party. 

Mr. EucKER. Did you meet a great many of those ? 

The Chairman. Yes ; we met a great many of them. 

Mr. EucKER. I thought the truth was this, that in view of the 
fact that they spoke so many different languages there that no living 
man has ever been found who could understand them all. How did 
the Taft party manage to understand them? 

The Chairman. There are in each of the provinces men who speak 
Spanish. These men spoke to us in Spanish, and we had an inter- 
preter, a most fluent and accurate interpreter, from Spanish into 
English and English into Spanish. 

Mr. EucKER. Could he interpret for all of these different tribes ? 

The Chairman. All the spokesmen spoke in Spanish wherever we 
went. 

Mr. EucKER. You did not come into contact with anybody that 
spoke more than one language? 



176 HEARING BEFORE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS. 

The Chairman. The educated people and the political people all 
speak Spanish. 

Mr. Hoar. If the gentleman will pardon me a moment, if they have 
delegates from each province who can speak Spanish it does not fol- 
low that because you have 40 dialects or 60 dialects that you can not 
have one legislature than can enact laws. I am in favor of giving 
them a legislature and the power to enact laws. 

The Chairman. I think that I can, without undue assumption, say 
that I have been a friend of that proposition from the beginning, and 
that I had some very strenuous combats in this committee to get in- 
corporated into the act of 1902 a provision for a legislative assembly 
for the Philippine Islands. I have been from the beginning in favor 
of such a provision. It was only by a divided vote in this committee 
that the House bill containing such provision was substituted for the 
Senate bill, which left it entirely out. We thought that we were 
going a long ways in giving these people the power to elect a lower 
house. 

No law can be passed without the sanction of the lower house. 
Just as soon as they have had experience with a lower house and have 
shown that they are fitted for government, then let the upper house 
be elected, as in Hawaii, and let them learn what self-government 
means, and the responsibility of obeying the will of the majority 
lawfully expressed. I want to call the attention of Judge Storey to 
one statement made to us in the marble hall at Manila. 

Before I forget it, Mr. Storey, permit me to say that we have been 
very greatly interested in and instructed by what you have said. 

Mr. RucKER. I desire to say that Mr. Jones, a member of this com- 
mittee, requested me to state to the committee that he regretted very 
much his inability to be here to-day. He was very anxious to hear 
Judge Storey, but found it impossible to be here. 

The Chairman. As I was saying, the principal spokesman, after 
arguing strenuously for giving independence and for the withdrawal 
of the United States Government from the islands, said in substance : 
" I represent or speak for those who govern, the governing class, 
and," he added " there is another class which is accustomed to obey," 
thus showing that he was thoroughly saturated with the old Spanish 
idea of caste. Judge Taft thinks that it will take some little time 
to eliminate that idea, and that the hopelessness, so far as the grant- 
ing of immediate independence is concerned, arises from this— that 
those poor people, the laborers, to-day have no idea of their rights. 
They seem to look upon it as legitimate for a man to say : " Here, you 
come over here and work for me five hours in building this house, 
and you bring over so much material for it." The man will do it, but 
he won't get anything for his labor nor anything for his material. 
It is the old feudal idea in an aggravated form. 

Mr. Storey. I have no doubt that there will be trouble of that sort. 
But, on the other hand, you will remember that you are giving them 
a governing class consisting of Americans, and as between the two 
governing classes I can not help feeling that the governing class 
that was Dorn there would be quite as likely wisely to deal with their 
problems as the few people whom we send over there for a few years 
at a time from year to year. I am free to assert that the men whom 
we have sent over there have done the best that they knew how ; but 



HEAKING BEFOKE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAK AEFAIKS. 17T 

they are aliens and can not understand the Filipinos as well as their 
own countrymen do. 

Mr. McCall. We have the same thing in the governing classes of 
our own cities. 

Mr. Stokey. I was going to say that if these men, with all their 
ability and all their good intention, have done what has been done, 
and have reduced the Filipinos to the condition in which they now 
are, it is a demonstration of our failure, and I doubt whether any- 
thing that bad native government could inflict on those islands would 
be any worse for the people than the things which have been done 
under the Americans. It is not as if we were going to take away a 
perfect government, thoroughly satisfactory, and producing perfect 
results, and substitute for it a very poor one. The point is that we 
have had eight years to try, and that results have been bad, and bad 
from causes which are permanent and which must continue to pro- 
duce the same bad effects. I have no doubt that the time is not very 
far distant when the American people will fully make up their minds 
to let these people go. We have experienced a certain number of 
plagues, and we may suffer a certain number of others ; but the prob- 
lem that we have to deal with, to govern that alien people, is a prob- 
lem that is impossible of satisfactory solution, and the sooner we 
recognize it, the better for us, and the better for them. 

Mr. RucKER. In connection with your statement, my apprehension 
is that the object lesson which the American occupation of these 
islands has given to those people has a tendency rather to help the 
idea of a governing class, and a class to be governed, than to dispel it. 
And my notion is that it would take very little to convert and qualify 
those people for self-government if there was some suggestion of thV 
achievement of that opportunity. 

Mr. Storey. I appreciate very highly the courtesy which the com- 
mittee has paid me in giving me so much time. If I can be of any 
assistance, I shall be glad to do so at any time. 

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